Misgotten
by Akane Nyx
Summary: A take on how Kakashi acquired the Mangekyo Sharingan. Just a one-shot. No connection to "Belongs to Her". *finally edited*
1. Chapter 1

_AN: Just a quick one shot. I'm bracing myself for fallout from this one, but I'd still love to hear what you think._

* * *

He should have known the moment that he stepped into the Hokage's office, two and a half hours late, that something was seriously wrong. Instead of the usual reprimand for his tardiness, he was met with a quiet, "Close the door and sit down, Kakashi."

It never occurred to him that this wasn't one of the sporadic updates that he had been receiving since Naruto left the village with Jiraiya. He just made himself comfortable and waited for her to pull out the latest letter and pour them both a glass a sake.

It wasn't until she hesitated that he really took notice. She was holding herself rather rigidly. The windows were closed, making the room stuffy, but quieter. There was no visible sake bottle or letter, only a thick file on her desk.

"What happened? Is Naruto alright?"

She shook her head, "They're fine." She drew in a deep breath and pull a photograph from the file. She studied it as she spoke, "You know that it is Konoha's policy to keep tabs on anyone we've trained who's has decided to forgo the shinobi lifestyle and travel on their own for a time. The third closed this file years ago, but he was wrong." She passed the photograph to him face down, "I'm so sorry, Kakashi."

The face that stared back at him from the photograph sent him reeling. The woman in the photograph was his age. She stood behind the counter of a small shop. Even though he hadn't seen it in years, he recognized the room that she stood in from a small general store in a tiny town hear the border with Sound. The woman's hair was waist length and blonde, her clothing civilian, but he recognized her by her soft brown eyes, the square markings on her cheeks that her makeup just barely failed to cover up, and the small pouch that hung from her belt.

"Rin," he gasped, flipping the photograph over to check the date stamp.

"Three weeks ago," Tsunade confirmed.

"She's alive," he said, obviously awestruck.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. I've spent years thinking that she was dead. This is wonderful news."

Tsunade drew a deep breath, "No, Kakashi. It's not." She pulled a stack of photographs from the file. "We were loosing a lot of men in the area. Far too many for the conditions. I sent Shizune with the team that was to investigate. She confirmed that it's poison. These tell the story pretty well," she said, offering over the stack of pictures that she held.

Kakashi slowly flipped through the photographs. Every one made him feel a littler sicker than the last. A Sound-nin entering the shop with a large bag and closing the door behind him. A close-up of the 'Out to Lunch' sign on the door. A shot through the window of uncorked sake bottles lining the counter. A woman's hands, a wielding a smaller bottle and a dropper. A sake bottle, in the same hands, being gently swirled. The Sound-nin recorking the bottles. A woman, the same one from the first picture, setting them on a display behind the counter. The Sound-nin taking a small scroll from her. A Leaf-nin standing at the counter and the woman pulling two of the sake bottles from the shelf. The final photograph showed the same Leaf-nin, obviously dead. "Which poison?" he finally asked, swallowing the taste of bile that had risen in his throat.

"It's a combination: Hemlock 19, Nightshade 27..."

"And?"

"Strychnine 4"

He cringed. "I don't understand," he admitted. "Why would she..."

Tsunade pulled a final photograph from the file. This time she did not offer it to him, only held it up for him to see.

Kakashi immediately felt as though his blood had been replaced with ice water. He fought the urge to vomit. "Kabuto," he hissed, tearing his eyes away from the pair of entwined lovers.

"Women to horrible things in the name of love."

"After," he gestured toward Obito's eye, "she swore that there'd be no one but him."

"You're naive," she gently reprimanded. "The nights get lonely and sometimes it's easy to mistake being used for being loved."

He nodded. He hadn't had such mixed feelings over something since he had stood by and watched as Minato sealed the fox into Naruto.

"I have to do something, Kakashi. I just want you to know first. I thought you deserved that."

"C-ran pay, I can be on my way within two hours," he said, naming his terms to a mission that he had not been offered. "Solo, I can manage this alone."

"I didn't call you in to assign this to you."

"I know, but I'm going anyway."

"You really don't need to."

Kakashi pulled himself from the chair. "Yes, I do. I promised Obito that I would take care of her."

"But..."

"I know what I'll have to do if I can't talk some sense into her. At least if I do it, it will be quick and clean. The same won't be true if those who have had to watch their teammates die handle this."

"Seriously Kakashi, I don't think..."

"Please."

She felt for the briefest moment like she was talking to Naruto about Sasuke. She gave him a slightly pitying look before she nodded. "You've got eight days. If not I'll have to have someone..."

"I understand," he said cutting her off before she could finish the sentence. "It won't be a problem."

Not able to look at him, she averted her eyes to the file to provide him with the location of the small store in the photographs. When she looked up she found that he was already gone.

* * *

As soon as he stepped through his apartment door he began peeling off clothes on his way to the shower. Usually he made it a point to see that all of his things were in order, his laundry taken care of, and his apartment neat before he set out on a mission but this was not the normal sort of mission. A quick shower and an even quicker shave later he stood in his bedroom. He'd be traveling as light as possible. There would be no time to be weighed down by a pack, he decided as he pulled a clean uniform from his closet. He quickly picked through the scrolls that hung on the rack on the back of the closet door: One containing rations, one containing a couple changes of clothes, one with a few weapons, and one with an assortment of simple medical supplies went into his vest pockets. He hid a few weapons about his body and was out the door with nearly forty-five minutes to spare in his self-imposed two hours.

It took no time for him to cross the village. For the first time in memory he did not visit the memorial stone on his way out of the village. He did not pause at the gate to make small talk with Izumo and Kotetsu. He did not even walk a short distance out the road before taking to the treetops. Anyone who saw his departure would have known immediately that he was on an urgent mission.

He was oblivious to the setting of the afternoon sun as he leaped from one branch to the next. His mind traveled through an all too detailed slide-show of his memories of Rin: of her as a teammate and a caretaker. He tried to not put any thought into what would happen when he found her. He chose to not think on that.

When the sun finally disappeared completely beneath the horizon, leaving behind a moonless sky, he was forced to stop for the night. He summoned Pakkun to keep watch and settled into the crook of a forked tree trunk to sleep for a few hours. His dreams were far from forgiving.

The next morning, after a night's sleep that was restless at best, he was back en route before twilight fully gave way to the dawn.

Kakashi was surprised by how quickly he made it to the little border town. He had planned on having to sleep in the forest another night but by sunset he was there. Running from old memories tended to hasten a journey.

He hadn't bothered checking in at the small encampment nearby, simply made his way directly to the general store and walked through the door. He quickly made sure he and the blonde shopkeeper were the only ones inside before flipping the sign to closed and locking the door.

"Rin," he said softly, hardly believing it himself.

Her head jerked up and she looked at him before saying, "My name is Asuka."

"But before, you were Rin."

"That is beside the point. That was an entirely different lifetime."

"I thought you'd died."

"I thought you wouldn't care."

"Of course I would care. We were teammates; friends."

"We were teammates, Kakashi, but we were never friends. You made that much clear."

"I was a bit colder when we were younger, but I always counted you among the few friends I had. Only a friend would take the risk of doing that kind of a surgery in those conditions."

"I didn't do to that for you. I did that for him. He needed to know that you were going to be alright. And you, you're not even letting me see what little of him is left."

"No, I'm not."

"You come all this way and you won't even let me see him."

"I know what you've been doing. And I know why. He wouldn't have wanted to see you like this."

For the first time since he'd stepped in the door of the little shop, she grew quiet.

"Why, Rin?" he finally asked.

"Because by the time I realized what I really wanted out of life, he was gone and the person who held the only part of him that remained wanted nothing to do with me."

"Even if I would have been interested at the time, it wouldn't have been right."

"And would it still be wrong?"

"Yes. For more reasons now than it was then."

She broke eye contact, looking down at her hands on the counter.

"You have to know why I'm here."

"They sent you to eliminate me."

"No."

"No?" she asked, sounding the tiniest bit hopeful.

"I was not sent anywhere."

"Oh."

"I insisted that the Hokage let me be the one to come."

"Why?"

"Because I thought I stood the best chance of talking you into coming back to the village."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't make myself go back to a place that raises the sort of people that you were."

"What?" he asked, seriously taken aback by her comment.

"The mission came first. For all shinobi the mission comes first. I can't be a part of that. Obito was different. He knew wrong from right. He saw the world in black and white. Everyone else had it all mixed up in shades of gray."

"Things are not what they were."

"You're right. He's gone now."

"He would be anyway," Kakashi said grimly.

She gasped. "Why would you say such a thing?"

"Because as much as we both hate it, it's true. Less than two years after you left Konoha, the Uchihas were massacred."

"Massacred?"

"Only two are still alive."

"The whole family? Which two?"

"Itachi and his younger brother Sasuke."

"What's become of them? Are they more like Obito than the rest of the clan was?"

Kakashi shook his head. "Itachi was the one who massacred the rest of his family, now he is Akatsuki. Sasuke is with your lover's master."

Her eyes widened. "So everything good in him is gone. And with it anything good in the village."

"I wouldn't say that. Things are changing. You should see Sensei's son."

"Naruto?" she asked, a spark showing in her eyes.

"Yes."

"How is he?"

"He's out training with Jiraiya right now."

"The Sanin? The one who writes those books that Obito read?"

"The one and only. And the blonde from those books? Don't pretend that you don't know who I'm talking about, I remember of you reading over his shoulder."

She nodded, a light blush covering her cheeks.

"She's modeled after Tsunade, who's now Hokage."

"What happened to the Third?"

"Orochimaru."

She grew quiet again. Slowly her place in the scheme of things was becoming clearer.

"Come back to Konoha?" he asked again.

"I can't."

"I've been given time to convince you."

"It won't matter. I can't go back."

"You know what will happen if you stay here, right? You know what I've been ordered to do if you won't come back with me."

"I know, but there's nothing for me there."

"And there's death for you here."

She smiled, a dim echo of the grim look that had crossed Kakashi's face at the mention of the Uchiha massacre. "And it was here for me before you came along."

He was stunned into silence.

"Sometimes I think he loves me, but I know that I'm just a pawn When they decide work here is not doing them any good anymore, I'll be of no use. Being with him, doing his bidding, is nothing more than a slow form of suicide. I've tried before, several times. I just don't have the guts."

"You want to die?"

"I want to see Obito again."

Kakashi pushed up his hitai ate and leaned across the counter.

"It's not enough. I just hope that when the time comes that he'll be able to forgive me."

He pulled the headband back down and stood up straight before circling around the counter to stand behind her. The thought of what he was about to do sickened him as he felt the cold steel of the kunai between his fingertips. "It was not in his nature to be unforgiving." he whispered in her ear laying his empty hand on her shoulder.

She did not tense or flinch, though she knew what was coming. "I hope you're right. Goodbye Kakashi."

"Goodbye Rin. May he greet you with open arms," Kakashi whispered. He slipped a senbon from his glove and into a point in her neck. She sagged heavily into his arms. The kunai slipped cleanly between her ribs, piercing her heart, stopping it instantly.

He pulled the blade out and rolled her onto her back. Somehow he was unsurprised by the peaceful smile across her features, but it still cause him pain.

Kakashi could not remember having cried since the death of his sensei, but the tears fell without shame as he held onto the hand of the woman who had once been his teammate. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "You always took better care of her than I could."

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, holding her hand, kneeling in the growing pool of blood, but eventually a knock at the shop's door pulled him back to reality. He pushed up his hitai ate up and quickly wiped his eyes. The blood on his fingers alarmed him. He quickly crossed Rin's arms across her stomach and stood up. When he looked at himself in the mirror behind the Sake bottles he felt much the same churning in his stomach as he had sitting in the Hokage's office. "I wish she didn't have to be the deliverer of your gifts." he said aloud, noting the pinwheel shape that the tomes in his eye had taken on.

The knock on the door came again, more instantly this time. There was no more time to think over what had just happened. He pulled the hitai ate back down over his eye, thankful that the bleeding from the eye was relatively light, before turning his attention to the door.

A sort of malevolence that he rarely felt rose in him when he saw the Sound-nin from Tsunade's pictures at the door with a large bag. He took a sort of twisted comfort in the man's death even though he knew that it made little difference in the scheme of things. There would always be another supplier, and there would always be another weak shopkeeper who would pass the goods along.

He pulled a few bottles of sake from the Sound-nin's pack and poured them about the floor. A small fire jutsu saw to the disposal of any potentially tainted merchandise and both corpses. He told himself that it was better that she be cremated here, there was no shinobi's burial waiting for her back home.

He wished belatedly, as he stood back and watched the flames, that he had taken the medic's pouch that she wore on her hip. After all, she had given it to him years ago. He had only returned it to her when she declared her intent to leave the village because he felt she needed a reminder of home as much as she would need it's contents.

When the small wooden building was charred beyond recognition and the beams were in danger of collapse, he turned and made his way to the small encampment.

They had seen the smoke, but what started as a hero's welcome quickly died down. It was obvious that there was no victory for Kakashi in the elimination of their threat.

He made his way to the medic's tent. The young man moved to help him but Kakashi refused. "I just need to clean myself up. I'd prefer to do so alone."

The medic obliged, setting several jars of gauzes and swabs and ointments on the long table and pulling out a box that contained forceps, tweezers, scissors and rolls of tape. He then turned, quietly gesturing to the supplies as if asking if they would be sufficient.

Kakashi nodded his approval and reached for the basin and jug of water that sat at the far end of the table and used the lid of one of the jars as a mirror. He quickly cleaned the drying blood from beneath Obito's eye. He noted that it had not yet reverted to its usual state. This caused him a small amount of alarm, because he knew that it was draining his chakra faster than usual. He pulled a gauze patch from one of the jars and folded it to cover his eye. A bit of tape held it in place, thus removing any temptation to use it before Tsunade could fully examine the change.

He was adjusting his hitai ate over the makeshift bandage when the medic reappeared. "Have you injured your eye?"

"Just a bit too close the flames," Kakashi assured him. "It's always been a bit light sensitive. I'll be fine in a day or two."

The lie placated the medic. "Do you need anything else?"

"Just a place to change and lay my head for the night."

"You're welcome to stay here unless we get more casualties in."

"That will be fine. I'll stay in the back corner out of your way," he said motioning to a cot in the back.

The medic only nodded.

After a bit of breakfast the next morning and reassuring the jonin in charge that the situation had been handled and that he would make sure that Tsunade would see too it that supplies were delivered as soon as possible, Kakashi set out for Konoha.

This time he paced the trip much slower. He stuck to the main roads at ground level. He needed the time to digest what it was that he had done.

Any Uchiha texts that he had read said that the Mangekyo Sharingan was obtained by killing one's best friend. Like the Sharingan itself, possession of the Mangekyo was something that he had never intended. It made no sense at first. Rin had never been his best friend. They had been as close as being teammates required, but little more.

When the realization hit him, it stopped him dead in his tracks. It was not his eye. It was not the person that he cherished that he had killed. It was the Obito's. The guilt that washed over him followed him the whole way back to Konoha.

He did not go to the memorial stone first, as was his custom, but rather directly to Tsunade's office. She was in a meeting with one of the newly formed genin teams when he stepped in the door behind them. She gave him a warning look as she continued relaying the instructions for their D-Rank mission. Kakashi ignored her glare and pushed up his hitai ate, revealing the bandage covering his eye. The panic that spread across her face was apparent. "Kakashi, go to the hospital and have Sakura show you to an exam room."

The team, who had all been oblivious to his presence whirled around to see him, but not before he had recovered his bandaged eye. Tsunade motioned for him to leave and cleared her throat to draw the attention of the team she was dispatching. "As I was saying, the town will be needing a new store built and you're going to be helping..."

She wrapped the meeting up as quickly as possible and made her way over to the hospital. "What room did you put him in?" she demanded, as soon as she saw Sakura behind the admissions desk.

"Thirty-five. Is he alright? He never comes to the hospital."

Tsunade shook her head. "I don't know," she said as she hurried off in the direction of the exam room that Kakashi was in.

When she opened the door she found him seated on the cot with his hitai ate folded neatly beside him. He looked at her and peeled off the bandages. "I can't turn it off," he pleaded.

Tsunade gasped and took a seat in front of him on a small stool. "That answers my questions as to how the mission went. I'm sorry Kakashi."

He pushed the conversation to the side. "Just help me turn it off. It's a real drain on my chakra."

She knew better than to push the subject, so she opted to comply with his request. The slow strings of chakra entering into his eye were unsettling. She examined it thoroughly over several moments before retracting her chakra. "I can't."

"What?"

"I can only cut off chakra to the entire eye, which would kill it."

"No."

"I can't turn it off. You're going to have to learn to control it yourself. Reserve a training ground and take Sakura with you while you're figuring it out."

"Sakura?"

"I have a feeling you're going to need a medic," she said brusquely. If he wasn't ready to deal with what he had just done, she knew it was best to treat it as though he had been on any other mission. "I need that report on my desk by close of business tomorrow."

"Aye."

She left the room as quickly as she had entered, stopping by the desk to inform Sakura of her role in helping her former sensei on the way out. This left Kakashi time to think the whole thing through. He wanted nothing to do with the Mangekyo. He should not profit from something so misgotten, but what choice did he have?

On the way out of the hospital he stopped by the desk. "Front gate at six in the morning," he informed Sakura.


	2. Author's Note edited

Just a note to say I finally got this edited!

Not a lot has changed, mostly just grammar and spelling mistakes, but I hope if this is your first time reading you enjoy.

~Nyx


End file.
